The birthing of animals, including humans and livestock, has presented substantial problems for doctors, farmers and veterinary doctors for many years. The problem has been most severe in the cattle industry where current trends in genetic selection commonly cause calves to be born at a larger size. Cattle giving birth at 24 months or younger are particularly at risk of having birthing difficulty because their birth canal has not yet reached full adult size. Not uncommonly, a veterinary doctor or livestock handler will be faced with a serious problem when a fetus has died during the birthing process and is incorrectly positioned or physically too large to be delivered. If the dead fetus is not delivered promptly, infection and shock can cause death to the mother. Conventional devices to extract the entire fetus by pulling on the fetus while pushing against the hindquarters of the mother can be dangerous because extreme traction often causes fatal injury to the uterus and birth canal. A costly caesarian operation has the often fatal risk of infection due to the delivery of a rotting fetus through a surgical incision. An area of veterinary obstetrics called fetotomy has been developed to provide an alternative delivery technique. Fetotomy pertains to separating the fetus into parts and removing the fetus through the birth canal one piece at a time. Special knives and wire saws are typically used to perform this procedure. Wire saws present problems due to the extreme difficulty of passing a rough wire around fetal structures in a very confined space without injury to the mother animal. In addition, once the cuts are made, sharp surfaces of cut bones may be exposed to the delicate structures of the uterus and birth canal.